Latest news with #HMPHolmeHouse
BBC News
4 days ago
- General
- BBC News
Rise in assaults on Holme House prison staff
Assaults on staff at a prison were "considerably higher" in 2024 than the previous year, inspectors have said. The Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) said staff at HMP Holme House in Stockton were assaulted by prisoners 90 times in 2024, compared to 40 such incidents in said nine of the assaults last year were considered to be "serious". The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has been approached for comment. In a report published on Thursday, the IMB said there were 324 incidents of violence among prisoners in 2024 compared to 298 the previous year. 'Substance misuse' Inspectors also found that force was used by staff on prisoners 856 times in 2024, compared to 468 times in 2023 and 268 occurrences in 2022. They also said seven prisoners were each subject to force on more than 10 occasions that year, with force used on one particular prisoner 21 times that IMB also found a number of prisoners "under the influence of illicit substances" on each day of its inspections. "Substance misuse continues to be a significant problem in the prison," the report any one time, almost half of the prison population is being helped by a non-clinical drug recovery programme, the team report revealed that of the 1,350 prisoners released from the site last year, 112 individuals had no arranged accommodation for the night of their release.
Daily Mail
15-05-2025
- Daily Mail
Transgender woman held in all-male jail complains of discrimination because staff address population as 'gents', 'lads' and 'fellas'
A transgender inmate has complained about being 'devalued' in an all-male prison because staff use everyday phrases like 'Right lads', 'OK fellas', and 'Come on gents'. Raiven Clench is currently serving time at HMP Holme House in County Durham but has lodged a formal discrimination complaint over the way prison officers address inmates. Writing in the latest edition of prisoners' newspaper Inside Time, Clench, who identifies as a woman, claimed she felt 'degraded' by the casual language used by staff when addressing the prison population. She said: 'I am a transgender in a male establishment, and while some accept me for who I am, there seems to be an established culture to denigrate and belittle members of the LGBT-plus community. 'Despite DIRF submissions, nothing changes.' She went on to say: 'The thing that really drives me nuts is the way we are called to lock up. 'Phrases like 'Right lads', 'OK fellas', and 'Come on gents' are used as a catch-all, making me devalued and degraded. 'As I understand things, officers undergo equality and diversity training to ensure all prisoners are treated with, and spoken to with, respect, including how they identify and wish to be addressed.' Clench, who is being held in a Category C facility that houses around 1,200 male inmates, claims to have raised the issue with senior staff but said she was left feeling 'invisible'. Each year, HMP Holme House receives around 120 Discrimination Incident Reporting Forms (DIRFs), relating to allegations of bias based on protected characteristics such as gender, sexuality, race, religion, age or disability. There are thought to be approximately 270 transgender prisoners in the UK, and prison officers are regularly sent on training courses to help avoid offending trans inmates. Charlie Taylor, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, praised Holme House in a recent report for making 'considerable efforts' to improve the handling of such complaints. He noted: 'There had been considerable efforts to improve both accountability and transparency of the discrimination incident reporting form (DIRF) process.' The jail also runs a monthly Diversity and Inclusion Forum where prisoners can raise issues directly with management. Prison guidelines outlined in the Prison Service Instruction (PSI) document 'The Care and Management of Transgender Offenders' stress that inmates must be addressed in line with the gender with which they identify. The PSI states: 'Individuals who are transgender must be allowed to adopt a gender-appropriate or gender-neutral name and be addressed by others consistent with the gender with which they identify, or as gender-neutral. 'Staff must make every effort to communicate with individuals in ways that respect their gender identity, using appropriate verbal and written communication and use of pronouns.' Transgender prisoners are also entitled to wear clothing, make-up and prosthetics in line with their gender identity provided they meet decency standards and do not pose security risks. The guidance adds: 'Clothing, hair, make-up, prostheses and other accessories may be subject to risk, security and operational assessments which will be discussed at a local transgender case board.'
The Guardian
20-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Liverpool academic's scent workshops help prisoners remember their past
'Smell it, but don't stick your nose straight in it,' says Michael O'Shaughnessy, pulling a small white card, sealed twice in ziplock bags, out of a metal chest. 'Waft it, close your eyes. Does it remind you of anything?' O'Shaughnessy, an illustrator and senior lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, first began using smells with art students, asking them 'to develop projects and concepts' based on scents 'because it's a leveller'. 'You've got kids who are bright and they can run with design, illustration projects,' he added. 'But this project in particular, I noticed that the clever kids didn't always respond more effectively than the kids who may be mixed ability.' He was running a similar workshop for the public at Tate Liverpool when he was approached by a prison education provider, who asked if he would fancy trying to run one in jail. 'I was fascinated,' he said. 'I really wanted to do it.' Now, his prison workshops, named Perfume Stories, have been so successful that he has trained in-house staff to deliver the workshops. O'Shaughnessy sources the scents himself and volunteers his time to teach. Participants are given small white cards, which have been doused in perfume. They are asked to smell them and use that scent as a springboard to create prose, a poem or – if they are less comfortable with writing – a drawing. 'The thing about smell is that you don't have to be clever to have that memory; that's your memory,' O'Shaughnessy said – those who may not have excelled in school may have a more developed sense of smell than others who did. O'Shaughnessy chooses the fragrances he works with carefully; he wants to invoke positive memories, and take prisoners back to happier times. 'I avoid certain very heavily masculine smells, in case any of them have had bad male experiences,' he said. At the end of the session, he asks the students to write a single observation on a sticky note. 'Opening brand new toy soldiers on Christmas Day. Good times as a kid. 53 years ago,' one inmate wrote. Others recalled holidays, smelling the roses on walks in the park with a dog or spending their pocket money on trips to the sweet shop. Some say the workshop brought back memories of parents, children or former partners. 'This smell reminded me of being at my nan's as a young kid, messing around with all the creams, perfumes and hair oil on her chest of drawers,' another wrote. 'This memory takes me back to the ages of seven, eight, nine, and 10, and is a memory I've never actually thought of before.' Perfume Stories is mainly used in English lessons, but at HMP Holme House in Stockton-On-Tees, O'Shaughnessy's project has been used across the curriculum, in hospitality, business studies and barbering. In hospitality, food scents were used to help learners to recall specific dishes from their childhoods, with them then drawing up a bistro menu inspired by their memories. These included dishes named after their inspiration, such as 'Nana Betty's hotpot'. In business studies, learners considered how scents can be used in marketing, and to drive purchasing. 'Learners gain a great deal of skills from it, from debating skills, to writing skills, to analysis skills,' an education manager at the prison said. 'It has been a great project used at Holme House, and the learners always engage well in it.' As he sought to expand his work, O'Shaughnessy approached some of the biggest fragrance houses across the globe, hoping to find collaborators for his project, and while initially he had little success, he found help closer to home, from Carvansons, a bespoke perfume creator in Haslingden, Lancashire. 'Basically we were the only ones that responded,' Vicki Last, the company's marketing manager, said. 'He sent out his advertising portfolio and some of the work he'd been working on, and said would you be interested in just even talking about it?' Carvansons has produced several bespoke fragrances for O'Shaughnessy, which he has used in his workshops. One of the many smells in his silver chest, requested by a member of staff at a prison in the north-east, was 'tomatoes ripening in a greenhouse'. Another scent, that he bought from a company in Los Angeles was 'box-fresh trainers'. When asked what prison smells like, O'Shaughnessy responded enthusiastically: 'I've got the smell of prison!' He added: 'I think it's like a room which has had no air, and it's had roast beef made in it, left for weeks, and it's got that musty old food smell, no air smell. 'It's got like an animalistic thing at the heart. 'It's a combination of old sweat, beef, and it's very distinctive, but it's not nice.'
